Upkar: The making of the biggest patriotic film

By Rajiv Vijayakar -

August 15, 2012 - 6:34 AM IST

Today, August 15, India celebrates 67 years of Independence. The year 2012 also marks the 45th anniversary of a film that is in its own league - Manoj Kumar's Upkar.

Why does Upkar, Manoj Kumar's first production and also debut directorial at an official level (he ghost-directed the 1965 Shaheed, which he had also written), become the first and most important film when we look at patriotic cinema? In the long annals where we have seen variegated epics on loving the motherland from a Mother India to a Haqeeqat, Manoj's own Shaheed and Purab Aur Pacchim, Border, Sarfarosh, Lagaan and many more, but this film about a farmer still in its own class as an epic benchmark in patriotic motion pictures.

Upkar: The making of the biggest patriotic film

The inspiration - the Prime Minister!
Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then-Prime Minister, inspired Manoj Kumar at the special screening of Shaheed in Delhi. "Why don't you make a film on my slogan "Jai Jawaan Jai Kisaan"?", a slogan Shastri had coined during the 1965 Indo-Pak war. "Something in the impassioned way he said those words struck a chord with me. I wrote the script in the 24 hour train journey back to Mumbai," smiles Manoj Kumar.

Sadly, recalls Manoj, Shastri could not live to watch the film, which went on to win three National awards - for Best Film, Best Director and Best Male Playback Singer (for Mahendra Kapoor for 'Mere Desh Ki Dharti', also a benchmark in patriotic songs). But after this film, Manoj made it a policy never to enter his film for the National awards!

"The reason was that there was a tie for Best Film with a Bengali movie (which has long gone into obscurity!) and while in such cases both films get trophies, some manipulations ensured that that film got it and I was given only a sop - a medal." Disgusted with this discrimination, Manoj threw the medal into a gutter!

From Ram to Bharat!
"The original name of my hero was Ram, as he had all the qualities of Lord Ram. But Mahatma Gandhi had once said that the real India lives in the villages, so I renamed him Bharat, the representative of an Indian with his joys, sorrows, dreams, aspirations and ideals. I focused on the value of a farmer to this country, for if he did not till the land, the most affording in the country would go hungry!"

Manoj's image was to become synonymous with Bharat after this film, especially in his own movies, and in this film he also tackled a danger Shastri had envisioned with great acumen - of farmers deserting their profession. "My Bharat was not the lachrymose ever-miserable and oppressed rural of Do Bigha Zamin or Mother India, but an educated farmer who never compromised on his dignity and was the ideal of what his tribe should be!" says Manoj. "The 'Jai Jawaan' element came in at the end when he hands over the land to his brother and joins the Armed Forces."

Incidentally, the depiction of a few war scenes between India and Pakistan deprived Manoj of an award at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, as one of their tenets was the promotion of international peace!

The Raj Kapoor factor

But when Manoj Kumar announced the film, well-meaning friends advised him to lay off. "Everyone cannot be a Raj Kapoor and do both acting and direction well!" they told him. "But I had tasted blood after Shaheed," smiles the maker of superb cinema like Purab Aur Pachhim, Shor and Roti Kapada Aur Makaan and the blockbuster Kranti. "In fact, the biggest compliment I got was from Raj Kapoor himself, who watched the film and told him, "I was competing only with myself. Now at last I have someone else!"

Later, when Raj Kapoor launched Mera Naam Joker, Manoj not only starred in Chapter One, but is said to have creatively contributed as writer and even as director to it!

But Raj Kapoor also joined names like N.N.Sippy, Raj Khosla (in whose Woh Kaun Thi? Manoj had actually first written several dialogues) and composer Kalyanji in trying to dissuade Manoj from casting Pran in a positive role as Malang chacha. "They told me that even Raj-saab had failed to make him accepted as a good man in Aah. But I argued that Pran was the Anthony Quinn of India, a man who could be signed if you could not think of a specific actor for a role. Kalyanji also protested when I wanted the song 'Kasme Vaade Pyar Wafaa' lip-synched by him. 'You will kill the song!' he told me. But I stuck to my guns, and was proved right."

Pran himself was privy to this reluctance and was the first to receive a congratulatory call from the composer after he watched the film. "Others sing with the lips," Kalyanji bhai told him. "aapne gale se gaaya hai!" Pran recalled also he was given respect at the Delhi wedding of his friend, comedian Om Prakash's daughter after Upkar. "Before that, for years, audiences avoided me as they thought that I must be a bad man in real life. But now they made room for me to pass in the crowd, saying 'Malang chacha aaye hai!'"

The Indeewar-written, Kalyanji-Anandji-composed masterpiece was originally designed for Kishore Kumar, then known as an actor who sang for Dev Anand and himself only. "Kishore told us that he was an actor, not a singer, and we chose Manna Dey-saab!" laughs Anandji bhai.

Of course, it was 'Mere Desh Ki Dharti', full-throatedly sung by Mahendra Kapoor, that was the album's highlight. "Gulshan Bawra had written this poem years ago, and I made him change it a bit to fit the film. Kalyanji-Anandji composed the song within hours," recollects Manoj, who led the cast with Asha Parekh and Prem Chopra, for whom too it was a major breakthrough. Kamini Kaushal and Krishen Dhawan. In all his subsequent directorials before Kranti, character artiste Krishen Dhawan was a fixture as his father, and Kamini Kaushal was usually his mother.

The Golden Jubilee hit trounced blockbusters like Milan, Ram Aur Shyam, Jewel Thief, Farz and Shagird to become the biggest hit of 1967 and also won other awards. "Upkar gave me the love and affection of the masses, not in a hysteria-ridden sensational way but with dignity," says Manoj. After this film, not only did he emerge as the icon of patriotism but also a King Midas as Hindi cinema's only director, whose first five films (or six if we include Shaheed) were either hits or mega-hits!

And there was one amusing flipside - as the iconic paragon that was Bharat, Manoj Kumar could not smoke in public! But Upkar remains a classic that first highlighted the huge fire of creative filmmaking talent that lay within the successful actor of films as varied as Hariyali Aur Rasta, Himalay Ki Godmein, Do Badan, Patthar Ke Sanam and more.